


travel down the road (and back again)

by spacenarwhal



Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: “How many people have you brought here to bang?” Jessica asks bluntly. Matt’s smile spreads, just a touch of incredulousness beneath it, a flush rising to his ears.Jessica bites down a grin. She called it.





	travel down the road (and back again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettybirdy979](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/gifts).



> I love Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock. I need you all to know that. I love them with my whole prickly pear heart.

“I know how to throw a punch.” Jess grouses, picking at the tape on her knuckles. Murdock frowns like the goody-two-shoes he decides to be sometimes—which is the biggest joke Jess’ ever seen—and flicks her in the wrist bone with annoying precision. 

Jess glares at him, punches him in the arm for good measure. Matt puts on a good show of not wincing, which Jessica has to admire if she didn’t know the guy was a total masochist. She grins hard in response, flexes her fingers against the tape Murdock helped her wrap earlier. Rand can critique Jess’ form all he wants but Jess knows she can kick an ass that needs kicking. She didn't have to train in a ratty locker room-scented boxing gym to learn to do it either.

“We don’t have to do this.” Matt says, voice bordering on the mothering lawyer tone that gets people to sing like canaries. “But I figured, since you asked—”

Jess snorts. “I asked you because I’d rather learn fisticuffs than hear about my chi from the kung-fu kid.” 

Matt huffs a laugh, runs a hand through his hair and leaves it standing on edge. “Thanks, I guess."

He braces his hands on his hips, looks abashed and awkward. 

“Can I ask you a question, like, not about decking a motherfucker?” Jess asks, studying Murdock’s face as carefully as she has their surroundings from the moment they stepped into the gym (Jessica read the files. She knows where she's standing). Jess can’t get a pin on the guy, all these months later, is still trying to parse out what’s a show and what’s real, figure out how to piece together the jagged edges and the cracked corners with the bad jokes and the laugh that follows, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen who fights beside her and the nerd who chuckles at Nelson’s puns over whiskey.

“I don’t know if we’re there yet.” Murdock deadpans, mouth somber and face straight, character breaking around the miniscule grin that leaks out at the corners of his lips. Jess rolls her eyes. 

(He reminds her, in a weird incomplete way that she will never examine, never consider, never allow herself to think about, of someone she knew before. It feels horribly sentimental. She hates it.)

“How many people have you brought here to bang?” Jessica asks bluntly. Matt’s smile spreads, just a touch of incredulousness beneath it, a flush rising to his ears. Jessica bites down a grin. She called it. 

-

“Heard you might be in need of a bodyguard.” Jess drawls, slumping down into the chair Nelson left vacant at Murdock’s bedside. It’s weird, seeing him in a hospital bed. In nearly a year of knowing the guy she’s never seen him down for the count. There was the brief incident where they thought he was dead, but even death wasn’t permanent enough to keep the guy out of the ring.

Murdock’s always moving, scaling the side of a building or throwing a haymaker, fidgeting with his cane or skimming his fingers over every available surface in search of secrets. He’s not moving too much now, looks small stretched out on in his hospital bed, the bruises on his face weirdly intensified without the mask and suit to frame them.

Murdock wheezes a short sound, grimaces like he’s pulled something he probably regrets pulling. “Foggy called you?” Matt guesses, face still tilted upward, eyes unmoving and unfocused, unfixed on the ceiling overhead. Colleen and Misty had found Murdock this time, jury’s still out on whether that was better or worse than him turning up out of the fucking blue one cold day.

“That boy called everyone in the tri-state area when you disappeared. Pretty sure if you go missing again he gets a prize.” Matt snorts, a hollow, ugly sound. 

“It your turn to babysit me?” Murdock rasps, and Jessica shrugs, bites her lip before adding, “Where’s it written that you’re the only one who gets to take it easy?” 

“If this is a break you don’t get to charge.” Murdock says with a thin grin that pulls against the stitches on the side of his mouth. Jessica wants to tell him to give it a break, there’s no one to put on a show for here. It’s just them. But Murdock would probably tell her to take her own advice. He’s an ass like that. 

“You’re buying me lunch.” Jessica says. Murdock doesn’t fight her on it, but then he doesn’t stay awake much longer either. When the nurse comes in with a sad tray of hospital food Jess steals the pudding cup on principle. 

-

There are too many people on the rooftop, bodies colliding and crashing, blood in the air and sweat on Matt’s tongue. Matt’s lost count of how many he’s knocked down, tries to get his bearings long enough to count how many are left, how many are on Luke, to gauge where in the building Danny is. Jessica is still somewhere on the street level and Matt wonders if she knows how badly she’s needed up here. 

Matt swings at his nearest opponent. Everything that follows happens all at once, a single split second of chaos. Matt swings, Luke yells, pain explodes in the side of his head, the ground falls away under his feet. He fumbles for his clubs but his fingers won’t cooperate, the world a single blurred mess of sensation—pain and heat and shock, blood pounding at his temples and filling the inside of the helmet. Matt falls. 

It feels like hitting a brick wall, like the cement rises up to meet him, catches him in the side and knocks whatever air is left inside his lungs loose.

Leather. Blood. The faint scent of whiskey. Jessica’s arms lock in a vice grip around him and for a second Matt would swear they’re flying, rising back towards the roof, the fight, air rushing in his ears, pulling further and further away from the pull of the earth. 

It doesn’t last. It never lasts. 

They start descending, rapidly, puppets cut loose, drop back towards the ground with only each other to hold on to. He tries to say something, anything, but all that comes out is the startled gasp of her name, and Jess crushes him closer. 

They fall. 

They land. 

The smell of garbage is overpowering, drowns out everything, even the scent of blood in Matt’s nose, crunches and rustles and pokes at him through too thin bags. 

“Shit.” Jess pants, struggling to regain her feet beside him, scrambling over trash bags to get to his side. “You better not die on me horn-head. Again. I did not sign up for that. ”

 _You saved me_ , he wants to say, her cool hand touching the bottom of his jaw, her thumb surprisingly gentle against his chin when she turns his head to look at whatever damage is apparent on the side of the helmet. “Jess.” He breathes, choking on the scent of decay, of waste, of filth. The only thing stronger than it is the taste of gratitude thick on his tongue. “Thanks.”

“God, don’t do that.” Jessica answers, breathless, relieved, just a hint of her usual anger pressing up through the cracks in her words. 

“Sorry.” Matt mumbles, and then there’s nothing. 

Unconsciousness comes up from beneath him and swallows him whole. He isn’t afraid. 

-

“Uhh…”

Of all the compromising positions to find Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones, this one honestly never crossed his mind. 

Matt doesn’t even turn towards him, his frustration still aimed solely at the conundrum in his lap. Jessica looks distinctly betrayed, hands going still, looking from Foggy to Matt. 

“Heads up would have been nice, Murdock.” 

Matt shakes his head. “He won’t care.”

“He looks like he cares.” Jessica hisses, slumping backward on the couch. Matt shushes her. “I’m counting.” 

“Wait—” Foggy interjects, taking another step into the apartment. It’s like a lightbulb going off, puzzle pieces sliding together after weeks of dodgy behavior. Jessica glares at him like a challenge, Foggy shifts on his feet, picks his words carefully. “Are you responsible for this new hobby?”

Matt slides the fingers of his right hand along the length of the knitting needle in his left hand. He frowns. “I dropped a stitch.” 

Jessica sits up a little, still skittish in Foggy’s presence now that the cat’s out of the bag. She cranes her neck towards Matt’s knitting. “Yeah, that patterns a bitch.” 

“You guys are weird.” Foggy says to no one in particular, the super heroes of New York City absorbed by the half-finished whatever in Matt’s hand. 

At least no one’s bleeding, he figures, ambling towards the kitchen. Though the night’s young, there's still time. 

-

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Andrew Gold for the masterpiece that is _Thank You for Being a Friend_ and the ladies from the Golden Girls for being flawless and modeling true friendship. #squadgoals 
> 
> Squint and you miss it implications of Matt/Foggy because I am trash and that is where I live all day every day.


End file.
